You WILL use these bulbs, Maggot!

jimpeel

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
It seems that the energy companies are finding novel ways to make money off of us.

  • Force $3.50 light bulbs on us
  • Make us pay $21.60 per pair
  • Add a fee to make up for the loss of revenue from the use of the more efficient lamps
  • Do all of the above using taxpayer money

SOURCE

KEVIN O'BRIEN
Cleveland Plain Dealer Columnist

Upset about FirstEnergy's pricey, hand-delivered light bulbs? You ain't seen nothing yet -- Kevin O'Brien
By Kevin O'Brien
October 08, 2009, 3:59AM

There was a time when you and I could be trusted to change a light bulb.

In those days, powerful people who made weighty decisions understood that if a light bulb burned out, even the dimmest of us common folk would know enough to remove it from its socket, choose a suitable replacement and install it.

Apparently all of the weighty decisions have been made, because powerful people have now worked their way down to telling us what kind of light bulb we will use -- and even bringing some to us, apparently fearing that even the brightest of us common folk might botch the job.

How is it that an act whose very simplicity spawned a genre of humor, based mostly on ethnic, sexist and sectarian slurs -- "How many (insert your favorite target for tactless, insensitive, mean-spirited, stereotypical humor here) does it take to screw in a light bulb?" -- has suddenly become a complicated, labor-intensive, expensive, public endeavor?

The old jokes have given way to a new one, with a reworked setup for the punch line:

"How many public officials and utility big-wigs does it take to -- well, you know -- every FirstEnergy Corp. customer?"

In just a few days, people dressed in green T-shirts and green caps will begin the rather enormous task of delivering two 23-watt, warm-white, compact fluorescent light bulbs to every residence FirstEnergy serves.

They won't ask whether you want them. They'll just leave them on your doorstep, in a bag that will also contain a brochure called "More Than 100 Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill."

They won't ask for payment, though. As you might expect with an electric utility, that's already wired.

These whiz-bang new light bulbs -- which cost FirstEnergy $3.50 each, and which you could buy all by yourself at any number of stores for even less if you were still trusted to do that sort of thing -- will cost you $21.60 for the pair. You'll pay it off over the next three years, at 60 cents a month added to your electric bill.

The bulbs you would buy at the store might come from China, like FirstEnergy's do, but they wouldn't come with delivery vans, or brochures, or paid bulb valets clad in green shirts emblazoned, "What's the Big Idea?" -- a slogan that just couldn't be more ironically appropriate.

Those little customer-service extras add up. But they're not the Big Idea.

"Providing energy-efficient light bulbs is just one way we can help our customers save money while also helping the environment," FirstEnergy's Web site proclaims.

Except that FirstEnergy really isn't "providing" them. You are. FirstEnergy is just inflating your cost tremendously by having them brought to you.

And, by the way, the $21.60 you'll pay for those bulbs also includes a little assessment to cover the cost of the electricity that FirstEnergy won't be selling you because you use those bulbs. Think of it as paying money to save money so FirstEnergy won't lose money.

Thus, saving customers money isn't the Big Idea, either.

So why would FirstEnergy go to all of this trouble? And why would the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio sign off on it?

Here's where the powerful people who make weighty decisions meet the Big Idea.

This is all about global warming, of course. Or to be less specific, climate change. Or to be more nebulous yet, greenhouse gases.

The General Assembly passed a law last year requiring Ohio's utilities to reduce their customers' energy use by 22 percent, and to shift 12.5 percent of their power production to "renewable" energy sources -- solar and wind, for instance -- all by 2025.

The Great Light Bulb Boondoggle is the leading edge of an energy-reduction effort to comply with commands the government of Ohio has issued to the tides of technology.

Those commands -- to foist immature and inefficient generation methods on consumers and push aside less expensive, more efficient power sources, like coal -- will be enforceable only at great expense to the public.

People are upset about FirstEnergy's light bulbs, as folks with sore ears at the PUCO will attest. But let's keep this in perspective: $21.60 is nothing, compared to the expenses we'll pay if the greenshirts drop a bag full of cap-and-trade taxes on our front porches.

So forget the PUCO. Call your senators and your congressional representative instead. Tell them you've had enough of command-economy enviro-thuggery. And invite them to put cap-and-trade in a place where a solar array would be both impractical and painful.
Click to expand...
 
Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
Another thing to think about... the demand for electricity is still trending upward, and good luck getting any power plants big enough to actually made a difference built for less than $21.60 per ratepayer. I don't know what the power plant situation is on Ohio, but things are tight in California. It was a big enough deal just to get a third line built on Path 15 for transferring electricity from the north to the south.
 
spike

spike

New Member
Do all of the above using taxpayer money
Click to expand...

Didn't see that part in the article. Also I'm not sure if they actually did this.

No Bulbs: FirstEnergy Corp Postpones Light Bulb Program

AKRON, OH (WOIO) - FirstEnergy Corp. continues to hold-off on the distribution of two energy-efficient light bulbs to each customer pending further discussion with PUCO, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

FirstEnergy Corp. had planned to distribute two fluorescent light bulbs to each customer despite the public outrage, including hundreds of customer complaints about having to pay for the light-bulbs they didn't even ask for.

FirstEnergy says " the energy-efficient light bulbs use up to 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs. By replacing two 100-watt incandescent bulbs with these energy-efficient CFLs, customers can save up to $60 over the life of the bulbs. "

Each customer will be charged $22-dollars for the bulbs being handed out. The fee will be tacked on to the customer's monthly energy bill over the next three years.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland got involved Wednesday along with other Ohio politicians and asked the energy company to rethink the program that basically forced customers to take their light bulbs and pay for them whether the customer wanted to or not.

http://www.woio.com/Global/story.asp?S=11266077
 
jimpeel

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
spike said:
Didn't see that part in the article. Also I'm not sure if they actually did this.
Click to expand...

The thread header didn't say that they HAD done this, only that they were GOING to do this.

In just a few days, people dressed in green T-shirts and green caps will begin the rather enormous task of delivering two 23-watt, warm-white, compact fluorescent light bulbs to every residence FirstEnergy serves.
Click to expand...
 
spike

spike

New Member
jimpeel said:
The thread header didn't say that they HAD done this, only that they were GOING to do this.
Click to expand...

So I didn't see where they were using tax payer money and it doesn't seem so certain that they're even going to do it (see my article).
 
Winky

Winky

Well-Known Member
I have already converted to CFL's

Ya see no free world capitalistic company
would ever institute such an obnoxious policy.
This is an outgrowth of government meddling.

My power company here did something I've never seen
before in my life, they deferred the chance to raise their rates!!!

They are going to wait and see if crap on trade happens
they are only allowed every so often to jack up their rates
they have to go before the Nazi government to get it approved.
they figure if their cost of doing business is going to go through the roof
they will keep their ace up their sleeve and if the bill goes through they will
get a MASSIVE price increase slipped right thru.

I have to believe even the libs will balk when their utility bills
increase by 250% over a 3 year time span. With an increase in taxes
tacked on the fact that real unemployment is headed towards 25%
people are going to get a bit testy before this is over.
 
Winky

Winky

Well-Known Member
Market forces shall not be denied.

Yep the invisible hand will administer the smack down!
 
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